


That Lucky

by false_alexis



Category: Ten Inch Hero
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Angsty Schmoop, F/M, Fix-It, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 01:45:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/false_alexis/pseuds/false_alexis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Priestly's got a secret, Jen's got good reason to be angry, and everyone else doesn't have a clue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Lucky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sailorhathor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sailorhathor/gifts).



> I got a little carried away with the wonderful prompt for this! In the name of clarity I'll say that every storyline except for Tish's ending, and Jen & Priestly's stories as a whole, have been left more or less untouched. This goes somewhat AU early in the movie, and wildly AU as of the girls' road-trip to meet Fuzzzy_22.
> 
> This story owes more than can possibly be said to Curiouslyfic and Freneticfloery, who worked terribly hard to break down the issues, the problems, and the possible resolutions! Without them, the fic as it stands would not exist, at all.
> 
> Content notes: This contains bad language beyond canonical use, discussion of sex (uh, sorry about the lack of smut, I tried but failed), themes of betrayal and trust issues, and a sickening amount of schmoop.
> 
> Disclaimer: Certain moments and lines of dialogue have been lifted directly from the movie and reworked into this story. If something seems familiar, it belongs to Ten Inch Hero and its creators!

>   
> _Priestly: What if he’s got, like, crazy-ass hair and more artificial holes in his face than real ones?_
> 
>  _Jen: Well, I could never be that lucky.”_   
> 

Priestly walks into the room with a bang. It’s not that he doesn’t know how to be quiet, it’s that he doesn’t see the _point._ Why the hell would anyone want to go through life as without drawing attention when they could make the world listen? So the door clangs loudly behind him, and while Mr. Julius and Lucille barely glance up a few kids from the community college stare. Not bad.

“Hey, Priestly, what’s got you in such a good mood today?” Trucker’s behind the register, doing something that’s probably important. “You keep grinning like that you’re gonna scare away all the customers. They could start thinking the employees here are happy.”

“Wouldn’t want that!” he agrees, but doesn’t stop grinning. Piper waves at him from the back counter where she’s prepping for lunch. “Hey, Piper. Pipe! That’s a good nickname for you. And how are you doing on this beautiful day?”

She raises an eyebrow at him, sets down the chopping knife. “Seriously? Okay, what’s up?”

“Nothing much. Just taking control of my life. Seizing the moment! Heading into the future full-speed!” He spins her around once, presenting her back to the prep table with a flourish. He heads to the back to clock in.

“So, does that mean you’re getting off your ass about Tish?” she calls out.

He misses a step. That’s one from left field. “What would I be getting off my ass about?”

“Oh, you know. Stop being a dick, ask her on a date,” says Trucker. “What you’ve been wanting for ages but are too chicken-shit to actually do.”

He stares at Trucker – Usually, the man’s a lot smarter than this. On the other hand, Trucker’s been pining after Zo for ages himself. “You’re projecting,” he says, because it’s the best answer he can come up with, and points across the street. “Seriously, just go over there already!”

Trucker shakes his head sadly. “Look at this poor kid," he tells Piper, confidingly. "He’s obviously in a state of shock, and has finally had a mental breakdown.” She grins back at him.

“It’s very sad,” she says. Then she straightens a little and turns back to Priestly. “But really, are you going to ask her?”

“Ask who what? Tish? Out? No, why would I?” They stare at him blankly. “Old news, guys. Gotta keep up with a changing world!” He struts out to the front to bus tables, because he’s gotta do something with all this energy. Clearing sandwich baskets may not quite be the life-altering, world-shaking act he’s ready for, but that’s alright. He’s got his plan in motion, and it’s going good.

The door jingles, and a businessman with a paisley tie pushes his way out past Tish as she comes in.

“Oh my god,” she says. She’s frozen in the doorway, one hand clutched to her chest like she’s about to faint. “Do my eyes deceive me? Did Priestly manage to show up for his shift before I did? Someone catch me, I may swoon.”

The college kids look like they’re more than willing to do so, especially the blond boy. Priestly just stares her down. “Dawning of a new era, Tish. You’ll have the chance to faint into all sorts of guys' arms.”

“Oh, please. What happened, some girl tell you your skirt was pretty?”

He sneers at her. “What’s wrong? Last night only a four?”

“I guess someone still hasn’t gotten laid.”

“You’re doing that enough for the whole shop!”

"All right, all right.” Trucker puts a hand on Tish’s shoulder, firmly, and his other arm comes out to guard as Priestly walks past. It’s like he’s trying to keep them from a slap fight, which is absurd. They’re not that immature. Well, usually. "Angel, we’re all very grateful you’re doing your part to keep our reputation up, and Priestly, I’m so glad you had an epiphany. Now both of you please shut the hell up and get to work.”

Priestly doesn’t do exactly what he’s ordered because that would be a bad precedent to set, but he does wander over to the computer where Jen’s fiddling. She keeps checking the online orders, then flicking back to the empty chat window where no one is posting. “Hi,” she says, as if she hasn’t heard the conversation at all. “Um, what’s going on?”

She looks embarrassed, like she’s hoping no one notices how focused she is. Poor girl still doesn’t know what’s good to want sometimes. That’s what happens when you grow up listening to the man. Priestly just grins, and gives her a reassuring one-armed hug. She’ll have her own good day pretty soon.

When the next morning comes and Jen makes an announcement about meeting her online friend (boyfriend… _friend_ , dammit, but that could change) he’s not even a little surprised.

 

* * *

 

The restaurant is really nice, which is good, because he’s spent more time trying to pick the right place than he will ever admit out loud. He’s even done the whole button down thing, but maybe they didn’t mean loud red plaid when they suggested proper shirts. Oh well, too late to change now, and he likes this one. It’s says ‘I’m not gonna cuss in your face right this instant’ without being too ‘Preppy Banana Republic shopper’.

The host knows that he should be keeping an eye out for her arrival. Priestly checks his watch again, fidgets with the cuff of his sleeve, twists his beer glass on the table. Maybe he should check with the waiter again, just to make sure she hasn’t come in. He leans out, scanning the room- there’s the waiter, Priestly can just ask him, except no, wait. Jen’s with him, and she looks gorgeous, her tough-girl jacket swinging open over a black top that he’s never seen before.

She also looks terrified.

He sits up, as straight as he can, and braces himself. The moment when she first sees him is the worst, because the host has just guided her over and left her standing there. Nervous hope passes into confusion into something else on her face. That’s okay. It’s gonna be confusing for her, that’s fine, he just has to walk her through it, no problem.

“Priestly?” she hisses. “What are you doing here?”

He loosens his grip on the beer glass, because it's possible his knuckles are turning white. “So, Jen, just listen to me for a moment.” It's also possible that addressing the beer isn't the best plan; he looks up at her. “Have a seat! Please. Just for a minute, okay?”

“Okay,” she says. “Keep it quick?” She sits, and starts drumming her fingers on the tabletop. It occurs to him too late that he should have probably stood up when she came in, done the nice-boy chivalry routine and pulled out a seat for her, as a gracious gesture or whatever.

“Right. Uh, about that- I, uh, you know how you’re meeting Fuzzzy_22 tonight?”

“Yeah, that’s kind of why I’m here, Priestly.” She's perched on the edge of her seat, as if ready to jump up and go.

“Okay. So, don’t be mad, but…” he trails off, spreading his arms wide. He forces a smile. It probably looks like rictus.

She cocks her head. “But what?”

“But… here I am?” It was supposed to be a statement, but it comes out as more of a question. _Damn it._

Jen's mouth falls open. Stunned, okay, stunned was probably going to happen. “Wait, what?” So, clearly she hadn't guessed, which just means he's been doing a good job with the secret identity thing. “How the… how have you even been able to… I mean, I remember talking to Fuzzzy_22 while you were in the room! That’s not possible,” she says. His hopes that she'd had some small suspicion were dashed, and that hurt a little, that she'd pinned all her dreams on a guy from the internet without noticing the people around her.

“Okay, yes, at first it was just my… It was someone else for a little while, I was gonna introduce you to my friend Jeff, but then I ended up answering all your questions for him and I think it’s been, like, ten months since I change the password to something he doesn’t even know.” Priestly shifts in his seat. “Would you please actually sit down?”

“No!” she says. “I can’t believe- was that funny? In the shop, when I was so panicked, was that funny to you?”

“What? No!” How can she- sure, he can be a jerk, sometimes, but does she really think that badly of him? “I just, once we started, it was hard to stop, and I didn’t know how to tell you, and I didn’t want to stop talking to you-“

“You talk to me every day!”

He rolls his eyes. “Not like that. You… I don’t know, you avoid saying too much about what you really think." Because apparently she thinks real-world Priestly is a loser of epic proportions, and she’d rather be here with anyone else right now. "Anyways, that’s not the point, the point is that _I like talking to you_ and I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.”

“So a year of lying was all you needed to make up your mind.” Jen's shaking as she stands, glaring down at him defiantly. “That’s great, Priestly, really top-class behavior, I can’t imagine why it hasn’t been working for you. Seriously, why don’t you try it on Tish? She’s the one who likes assholes. Maybe now you can finally get her in bed,” she snarls, and wow, that’s a level of catty he'd never even imagined she was capable of. It looks good on her, even if it's complete bullshit.

He jumps up. It leaves him awkwardly looming over her, his height too much of an advantage, but he it's better than just sitting and taking it. “Jen, I didn’t mean to lie to you!”

“But you did.”

“Okay, yes, but-“ he cuts off, and looks at her. “Wow, you’re really pissed.”

“Very good,” she says. Her voice sounds weird. “That’s really good of you to notice." Oh, god, she's going to cry, any second- and all at once Priestly feels like a a world-class asshole. "Yes, I’m pissed, anyone would be pissed, I’m probably going to be pissed for a really long time because _you lied to me_. Which is not the way you treat your friends.”

“Oh.” He's not sure what to do now. He's played out a lot of possible consequences in his head, gone over every 'how will she take it' that he can think of, and this situation never came up. In his mind she didn't hate him after, because she'd said no one could hate him and that she’d be lucky to meet a guy like him and he'd thought she _meant_ that- so the worst that he'd considered was she was uninterested, and that it would be awkward and he'd leave the job. Which, hell, that's probably the best possible outcome now, because when Trucker finds out... “Do you want me to quit?”

“What?” She's clearly shocked. Nice.

He steps back, giving her a little space, and just sort of concentrates on the faint constellation of freckles over her cheek. “Look, if you’re this mad at me- I knew Trucker was going to be mad, and probably Tish… and I’ll get out of your life if you want, but I’d rather quit than get fired, you know?”

She shakes her head. “No, of course not, don’t quit unless you want to. I’m angry, Priestly, I’m not hell bent on wrecking your life. Just, uh, give me some… let me just tell the girls that we argued and I want to go home, and that’ll be that. And don’t bring this up again.” She turns away. She had been a little distracted when the waiter led her in here, but she can find her way back out. Probably.

“Hey, Jen,” he calls out. She turns around. “Are we alright?”

“No.”

 

* * *

 

Priestly makes it through the Monday from hell. He makes it through Jen not looking him in the eye, not once for a full day, and acts like it’s just part of her being a little hurt. She’s not really saying much, and every time she insists that ‘she’s fine, she just doesn’t want to talk about him anymore,’ he winces.

Maybe she doesn’t have anyone she can talk to, but he doesn’t either. He avoided contact with anyone from the shop since Jen walked out, on the off-chance that Tish decided to start systematically dismembering him in some elegant, public way. He’d been so desperate he’d even thought about emailing Jeff, but would he say? "So, I ended up telling Jen that I'm Fuzzzy_22 now, and she thinks I've been deliberately lying to her, which I haven't, except for how I've been telling her that I live in Santa Monica and when I see her at work I don't mention anything that we've talked about and yeah, okay, I guess I have been lying to her a little, and now she's never going to speak to me again, she might not even be speaking to me in person, and oh, yeah, I'll probably lose my damn job over this." It's not a very appealing start to a conversation. So he’d spent Saturday night on the beach, a little way down from where someone had built a fire, watching the light fade from the sky over the ocean, and wondering exactly how he ever got himself into this mess.

Seeing her like this is twisting salt in a wound. She’s hurting, and he can’t do anything because it’s his own fault. He apparently did everything wrong when he was just trying to do something big right. Trucker’s got an arm around her shoulder every chance he gets, and the whole damn shop is there to pick up the slack if she gets distracted or if there’s a customer who might be rude.

Jen doesn’t do distracted, or maybe she refuses to let herself be distracted anymore. Unfortunately, customers will always do rude.

It falls to Priestly to intercept this one- a grandfatherly professor type with an obvious chip on his shoulder. “Excuse me. No, don’t look down at that, look at me, I’m talking to you.”

“And what a pleasure it is,” says Priestly. “So how can I help you today, sir?”

“I ordered my lunch without mayo. I got mayo!” The man is shaking, and Priestly can’t even remember if he was ‘for here’ or ‘to-go’.

“I’m so sorry, sir,” says Priestly, because they always try to start out polite. “You want a fresh sandwich? What did you have?”

The man waves his arms dramatically, his baggy brown sweater falling down around his wrists, making him look even more the cranky professor. “I already ate it, why would I want another?” He’s yelling now. “You stupid kids. I swear, you think you’re too good to actually listen to anyone, with your stupid hair and your ‘I’m so bad’ attitude.” He mimics a teenager’s slouch, leering at the world.

“Look, I can give you a refund.”

“I don’t want a refund! You think some stupid bits of metal in your face make you tough?” The man sprays a fine mist of spittle while he yells. “You look like you had a bad run-in with a toolbox. Can’t you even dress yourself?”

“Hey!” Jen steps in front of him. _Jen. Steps in front of him._ Confrontation with strangers is something that Jen simply doesn’t do, and can’t do, as far as he knows. “I know, it was really dumb of us, I’m sorry we messed up.”

The man looks at her. His beard is weirdly bushy; Priestly wonders if the guy even owns a trimmer. “You didn’t mess up my order, miss, he did!” He points at Priestly, as if there might be some other guy around who offended the geezer’s sandwich sensibilities and he just wants to be clear.

She smiles at him. “Well, maybe I can make you a sandwich, then? I make a mean bologna and cheese, you know.” Her voice is soothing, and she looks so shy and warm right now.

He frowns at her for a moment, then nods. When he leaves it’s because she takes his arm and walks him to the door, where she stands and waves goodbye. “I think he’s lonely,” she says, coming back to her station at the computer. “I don't think he talks to people much anymore. I told him that we have a few regulars, and that if he comes by in the mornings this week I’ll see he gets coffee for free- you think he and Mr. Julius would get along?”

Piper comes back in from taking out the trash and a remarkably long five-minute break. “What did I miss?” she asks. “Who’s gonna get along with who?”

“Whom,” says Priestly, just because.

Both women glare at him. “There was this guy in. We got his order wrong, but I think he only complained because he wanted somebody to talk to him,” Jen explains to Piper.

“He was a complete dickhead,” says Priestly. “He was rude, he wouldn’t let me give him a refund-“

Jen sighs. “He’s not so bad. Let it go, Priestly.”

She’s having a hard day, and the least he can do is try not to make it worse. He lets it go.

 

* * *

 

When things get complicated again, he can legitimately say it isn’t his fault. Or it mostly isn’t. Tish’s shitty boyfriend deserved what was coming to him, and if Priestly started that fight it was because someone had to. Thank god, or whatever powers may be, for bosses who can do the finishing of a fight.

“Does anyone else think that Truck might have some ’splaining to do?” Priestly chucks it out with as much grace as he can under the circumstances, which, in all fairness, aren’t on his side. His pride has taken a bigger beating than his body just now. It’s not that he's never considered the possibility he’d get thrashed in a fight, it’s that it never occurred to anyone that Trucker might not.

So even Jen reaches out, helps Priestly off the ground, and Tish refrains from snark for the entire van-ride to Trucker’s. When they find Piper, running towards the sandwich shop with a wild light in her eye, they load her into the vehicle no questions asked and keep driving.

Trucker’s place is… well, it’s weird, because it’s exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from an aging hippie except apparently? He’s not so much an aging hippie. He’s more of a ‘late in life’ hippie. And on top of that, he’s not exactly the person Priestly would want to be, has thought he always wanted to be. But, given that Trucker just took out the guy who was hurting Tish, it’s hard to say he doesn’t still want to be who Trucker is. Everyone just loves Trucker, so easy, because he's a good guy now no matter what he’s done in the past. He’s still worried about them, about Tish, and he still keeps the shop running in the black (god only knows how), and he just… doesn’t do the wrong thing all the time. He’s good at life, except for the Zo bullshit, and when Jen points out that Zo already knows, it makes all the difference. Suddenly Trucker has it all laid out in front of him, which is completely unfair. Priestly’s love life is a mess, but Trucker’s got it made?

Jen keeps smiling, half-heartedly, at everyone. It makes Priestly nervous. Is she scared because there was a fight? He doesn’t know how to ask that, so he settles for a simple, “How are you doing?” while the others are busy giggling over embarrassing high-school photos.

Jen ducks her head, doesn’t look him in the eye. “I’m fine,” she mumbles. She’s back to the yearbook before he can press, and she spends the rest of the evening all but glued to Piper’s side. As avoidance tactics go, it’s pretty effective.

When they’re heading home, Priestly offers to walk Tish back to her door. He feels, for the first time, bad for her and her one night stands: what had sounded fine when he said it was a lot more unpleasant when it came from some loser who wanted to use her and lose her. And who also thought hitting a girl you were sleeping with was okay, which, wow, totally new low there.

“You sure you’re okay?” Priestly asks, rather than say any of the things he’s been considering saying.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” says Tish. The sidewalk is quiet, but there’s still the occasional passing car; summer in Santa Cruz means the city is alive until late in the evening. “I may need to rethink my standards on men, but I’m not exactly gonna break my heart over this.”

“Really?” He’s not quite doubting her, but come on. This has to have shaken her. “I mean, your boyfriend hit you. That’s not… you just get over that?”

“I do.” She shrugs. “I’m not gonna let that bastard ruin my life. Hell, I’m pissed that he ruined my day.” She stops then, and takes pity on him. “Look, Priestly- I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out, but for me? Tad is just one tiny, insignificant little fish in a pretty big ocean.”

“Huh.” They start walking again, ignoring the kids whizzing past on bikes, probably trying to get home before curfew. “So…”

Tish smirks at him a little, but it’s warmer than it was before. “I’m not saying that if a nice guy were to come along and ask me out, I’d say no. But he’d have to have the stones to actually ask me.”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat and looks away. “You’re… you’re gonna find a nice guy if you want one.” He hopes she does, at least for a little while, because these dudes are getting unpredictable.

“Oh, I know!” She grins wickedly. “Might happen any day. Clock’s always ticking, you know.”

So they’re at this point. It occurs to him that he could do this. He could be with a woman who isn’t completely pissed at him, who isn’t afraid of him, who he hasn’t hurt and betrayed and really left with no reason to trust him, but something about it sits wrong. Tish doesn’t date guys who dress like him, act like him, _think_ like him, which means she’s gotta either change her standards, or he’s got to change it all. Neither is particularly appealing.

He puts a hand on her shoulder. “And I’m okay with that. In fact, I hope you find him as soon as you want.” Because he does. “I’ll be right here, cheering you along, hoping my own love life doesn’t look like yours,” he says, but there’s no heat in it today. The two of them are different people, they make different mistakes, and right now he’s not sure she’s doing any worse than him. Maybe she’s doing better.

“Thanks, Priestly,” she says. She kisses him on the cheek before going in.

 

* * *

 

Trucker brings Zo with him the next week, when Tish insists that they all should come over for dinner. Apparently she’s been hiding a secret life as a culinary diva, because her organic vegan chili supper is to die for. She’s put out some plain cheese and sour cream on the side for people who want them, but Piper says that it's criminal to dilute chili in any way. “If this is what heaven is like, I promise I’ll be good every day for the rest of my life,” she sighs dramatically, and Priestly’s gotta agree with that.

“Oh my god, how do you work in a sub shop?” asks Priestly. “You should be a sous chef for fucking Wolfgang Puck.”

“Wolfgang Puck, Priestly? Really?” Tish asks. Or possibly mocks.

“What? I get the Food Network.”

Trucker claps her on the back and cheerfully asks for seconds. When dinner is over, and they’re all sitting around, the entire crew gives in to temptation and starts grilling Zo about the things she’s done with her life, about how much she likes Trucker, about how long she’s been waiting for him to muster up a little courage and make a move.

“It’s really romantic,” says Tish. Everyone stares at her, and she makes a face. “Oh, don’t give me that. Just ‘cause I’m not out there hunting the streets for true love doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.”

“Seriously, you’re okay with… everything?” asks Jen. She’s fidgeting with the fringe on a ratty old throw blanket, something that may very well have been in use since the '60s. “I mean, he did kind of not tell you the whole truth.”

Zo turns and looks at her very, very intently. She’s still a little freaky, with her habit of knowing things without being told, sometimes guessing before they happen- and Priestly’s not entirely convinced she’s just guessing. Maybe she really does know the future. There’s sure weirder shit than that out there in the world.

When Zo finally speaks, it’s in her usual tones, calming and deliberate. “But I already knew. And even if I hadn’t, he had his reasons, and I understand why he did it.” She looks at Trucker now, speaks straight to him, as if her words are some sort of absolution. “Anyone might have done the same.”

Trucker looks like he might explode with joy, right then and there. Jen just squirms. “But not all lies are justified.”

“Of course they're not. Sometimes, even with the best intentions in the world, it is a mistake to tell a lie.” Zo’s attention refocuses, slowly, on Jen. “Lies can do great harm to your spirit. There are always consequences, whether we see them or not.”

“And people lie for stupid reasons,” Jen says, and it occurs to Priestly that maybe they’re not just talking about Trucker anymore. It’s his turn to squirm, but he bites his tongue. Metaphorically, that is.

Zo and Trucker both nod. “Yup, they do,” Trucker says. “Sometimes, people are just jerks. Sometimes the best you can do is demand an apology.”

“And then what?” Oh, god, Jen’s almost crying. Again. Priestly hates it when she does that.“Does that make it better?”

It doesn’t look like Zo even moves, she’s just there, suddenly, at Jen’s side, holding her gently with one arm. “Only you can decide that, my dear.” She strokes her hair until it passes, until Jen has regained some modicum of composure. Zo looks up, addressing no one in particular, just talking. “In the end, it is for you to forgive or not. Only you can decide if a lie was justified, or if you can forgive it no matter how wrong it was. There’s no secret to forgiveness, my dear,” and it’s like she’s talking to Jen, but Priestly knows better.

He thanks Tish politely for the chili, and leaves as soon as he can. It’s possible he has some thinking to do.

 

* * *

 

Piper’s babysitting Julia and Tish is actually going to a show with a guy- and she’s considering dumping him before sleeping with him, which they all regard as an interesting development- when Trucker gets called away. “I’m so sorry,” says Zo, “but it just broke and I’m not sure-“

“I’ll be right there.” He turns to Priestly and Jen. "Be back soon, don’t burn down the store,” he says as he follows Zo out.

“‘It broke,’” Priestly mimics. “Yeah, right. Bet they’re going to have some hot hippie loving right now.”

“Priestly!” Jen wrinkles her nose. “Don’t talk about them like that. They’re sweet. Zo’s really lovely, and they’re so good for each other.”

“Yeah, yeah, true love, never happier. Think they’re having a nooner?”

“It’s six o’clock!”

He raises his eyebrows appreciatively; he’d been anticipating a comment about discussing their boss’s sex life. That’s almost sassy of her. She goes back to wiping down the booths, and he just watches her for a minute, cleaning up the fine layer of crumbs from where children have been eating rather vigorously. After a minute he walks over to her, trades her filthy rag for a clean one.

Priestly casts about for something, anything to talk about that doesn’t call them back to why they’re not really talking. “That old guy from the other day was in this morning,” he says. Jen twitches but doesn’t say anything. “He spent three hours glaring at me. It was creepy.”

“I’m sure he’s just getting used to you is all,” she says. “He’s got some ideas from his time.”

“You mean the way he thinks that when someone looking like they might have a brain of their own, that clearly means they don’t? It’s shallow, and petty. He’s shallow. And stuffy.”

“Everyone judges people on how they look, Priestly,” she says, still soft.

“I mean it, he’s the most shallow sort of jerk we ever get in here. Why would you invite someone like that back?” he asks Jen.

Her tone has a note of something unusual. “Because he didn’t have a place to be,” she says.

“And it’s great that you do that with the homeless guys, the ones who need it- you’re amazing like that, Jen, but come on. Tell me this isn’t a part of some freeze-out.”

“Hey!” Now her tone is pretty clear: it's anger, and a lot of it. The pair of teenagers who had been working on their soft drinks apparently decide they’ve gotten all they can, or maybe they’re a little frightened by her, because they practically run out the door. “I didn’t start this mess. You’re the one who lied to me!”

“And you’re the one who’s holding it against me! I said I’m sorry!” he protests, because it isn’t fair, she’s not the only one here who is hurting.

“No you didn’t!”

“Well, I am!” He goes to grab the cups off the table at the exact same time she does. “Sorry. I mean, I’m sorry! Alright?”

She ducks under his arm to get to the sink. “Alright!”

“Alright!”

“Good. You’re sorry.”

“Yes.” He’s not-quite-yelling, and he’s not entirely sure how that happened. He didn’t mean to take it out on Jen, to let his tone match hers. She carries the dishes in to the sink. He follows her. “Hey, okay, so, is that it?” he asks, tempted to run his hands through his hair, but he can’t, his mohawk would be ruined. Stupid mohawk.

“Is what it?” she asks, voice perfectly blank.

“Is that what was holding you back? I didn’t say I’m sorry? Because I am, you know, I am sorry, I am so, so sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

“God, just, stop!” She drops the dishes in the sink, dishwater splashing everywhere, and goes to scrubbing them with perhaps a little more vigor than is called for. “I get it. I’m not sure I forgive you, but I get it, we can work past it, just…”

“Just what?” He really would fix it, if he knew how. “What do you want? What else have I done? Tell me so I can make it right!”

She huffs, loudly, and passes him cups as she rinses them. He grabs a towel and starts drying, because why not. “Do you even listen to yourself? You spend how long flirt-sparing with Tish- since, what, the day you two first laid eyes on each other? Saying she’s too easy, that’s she’s manipulative- you hurt people all the time, Priestly, and it’s like you don’t even care.”

Oh. That’s… oh.

That’s not who he wants to be. He doesn’t want to be the person who hurts his friends, and yeah, maybe he hasn’t been as gentle with Tish as… as he should have been, but come on. She’s tough. She can take it. And there were those awkward months, at first, when he'd wanted but known he couldn’t have, that she wouldn’t bother with him. That she was out of _his_ league, but apparently not out of anyone else's. It had stung. So maybe he’d stung back, a little, but that’s just… this place is like a family, they’re like siblings, it’s just harmless sibling rivalry.

But when he opens his mouth to say all that to Jen, the words won't come out. Because she’s not like him, she thinks about the way her actions affect everybody, and that’s something he’s always liked about her. It’s one of her good traits, and god, she has like a thousand of those. It’s just that she would never have screwed up like this- oh, sure, she’s so in denial she can’t even begin to acknowledge that he’s into her, but that’s about the way she’s too hard on herself, too generous in her assessment of other people.

So he doesn’t say any of what he’s thinking, because she probably knows where it’s coming from.

“I’m not, um,” he says, eloquently. “I’m not into her, and I, uh, I’m trying to watch what I say. I thought…” he shifts. “I’m sorry for not making that clear.”

She takes the time to finish the cup she’s working on; it may be the cleanest cup that the Beach City Grill has ever had. It’s a work of art by the time she’s done with it, and she snatches the drying towel from him to finish it herself. When she can’t stall anymore she looks up.

“Can I help you?”

“You don’t yell at people,” he notes.

“No, I guess not.” She reconsiders this, a slight smile starting in the corner of her mouth. “Except maybe I do. Now.”

He feels the grin on his own face. “You’re not comfortable yelling at strangers, I know you, you want to be nice to everyone you don’t know. You feel comfortable with me! You’re familiar enough to yell at me.” It’s a nice thought. He wants all of her, so knowing she can tell him how she really feels, even the bad stuff about him, that’s good.

“Maybe no one else makes me this angry,” she says, but the heat’s gone out of it. She doesn’t even sound like she’s scolding him anymore, she’s just jabbing back to save face, keeping up the mocking that makes up daily conversation. “You’re pretty remarkable like that, you know.”

“Aww, Jen,” he says, and reaches up to pat her cheek. “That’s so sweet. So are we okay?”

She considers. “Maybe we’re less-not-okay. Maybe we will be okay. Ask me later.”

“Later when?”

“Some time when we’re chatting,” she says with a bit of a smile. He grins back at her, too pleased with himself to even reply. “Hey!” She throws the rag from her apron at him. “Go finish that table. God, do you even work here?”

 

* * *

 

Priestly yawns. It feels like a long time since he's been up half the night, just chatting, typing away about nothing in particular and everything all at once. It's nice. It's a little weird, the way Jen censors herself now- she no longer holds back identifying information, like the names or details of people and places, but she holds back her opinions about them a little more than she had, doesn’t tell him about her own feelings on matters when she would have once.

He tries not to fixate on that. At this point, he's lucky she's talking to him about anything at all.

When he finally drags his ass in to the shop, after waking up almost an hour late, he strives for the same sense of nonchalance he'd had a before they fought.

Trucker glares. "And here I thought we'd cured you of your perennial tardiness. What happened? You fall off the wagon?"

"Wouldn't want you to get too comfortable," Priestly says. "You start assuming things are gonna be a certain way, you shrivel up and die inside!"

Everyone rolls their eyes, even Lucille and Mr. Julius. The grouchy man, who turned out to be Professor Carlson (Priestly had totally called it on the professor thing) just harrumphs, but doesn't bother giving him any grief. They've reached a weak truce, he and Priestly, by coexisting with minimal interaction. Yesterday Professor Carlson even let Priestly take his order and make his sandwich without any comment at all on his hair, though Priestly privately thought the purple deserved a mention.

Tish and Piper are grinning between themselves at the back of the shop, trading the occasional whisper. Priestly gives them a look, because seriously, keeping secrets around here never works, and they should know that by now. He’ll ignore the hypocrisy of that thought and concentrate on how Tish is totally gonna spill and soon.

“So… what are you conspiring about?” he asks. “Found a new line for reeling them in, Tish?”

“Not for me,” she says with a smug grin. “But maybe for Jen.” Jen looks up sharply.

Priestly has no idea what to say to that, except that teaching Jen to pick up guys is a very bad idea and he needs to head this off right away.

“So I went to dinner with this guy the last night,” Tish continues to Jen, “and he told me flat-out he wasn’t looking for a one-night thing. He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s built, he’s got the face of Adonis, he’s head of IT at a decent sized business, he’s perfect, Jen. Let me set you up.”

“No.”

“Why not?” says Piper, and she looks legitimately confused. “It’s not like you’re waiting for…” she hesitates, as if she’s not sure if she should say the name, and settles on something vaguer, “for anyone, right? And this guy was really good to Tish.”

“Of course he was,” says Jen, and there’s a bitter, dead quality to the words. “I just don’t think I should do that.”

“Come on, give it a try,” says Tish. “One date. Anyone can survive one date. Tell her, Priestly.”

He nods once, not really sure he can encourage her to go out with Mr. Perfect out loud.

“No thanks.” She gets up and starts fidgeting with her computer’s station. “An evening of disappointed, polite conversation and ‘how soon can I leave’ isn’t…”

“Why do you even think you’d get that?” Tish asks. “You’re an amazing person, Jen-“

“And any guy would be happy to recognize that in someone who looks like you, okay? But…” Jen swallows hard. “Guys want the hot girl. Always.”

“You’re hot!” Priestly has to object. He’s really confused now, glancing at Tish and Piper for some help, because surely they are going to be there, with him, telling her she’s talking nonsense. “I mean, you’re… really gorgeous.” She’s got the freckles that lightly tint her cheeks standing out bright under her flush, coming clear across her nose and forehead as they always do when she’s nervous. And her hair is exactly right, she doesn’t fuss with it like Piper and Tish and every other woman he’s ever known, sometimes it’s fuzzy like she didn’t bother brushing it after a long night, and on those days she’s got that gleam in her eye and he has to stop himself from contemplating whether something happened, except usually it’s been him, the two of them talking far too late. “Uh-“

“Priestly.” Her voice is flat, dead-edged. “Don’t _fucking_ condescend to me. Don’t you dare.”

“I’m not!” he insists, but she’s already turned her back, and Piper, of all people, is there to pull him away.

Tish puts an arm around Jen. “Hey, look, I’m sorry, Priestly’s just being an ass.” And sure, she’s taking her side, because Tish… actually doesn’t have much reason to think he wouldn’t be mocking her, except that someone would have to be _fucking blind_ to not see how attractive Jen is.

“Come on. What? You think other people can’t see it?” Piper’s giving him the ‘shut up, asshole’ glare she must have learned from Tish, and he makes a face. He’s just stating the obvious.

Piper cuts in like she’s trying smooth his words over. “Most of those guys are shallow assholes. And you don’t go around begging for attention.”

“So what do I- Piper you have no idea, okay?” Jen’s frustrated, she must be, because she has never, ever spoken this way to Piper, Priestly will lay money on it. “You don’t, you and Tish.”

“I might be getting an idea,” says Tish, very dryly. “But you’ve got so much to offer! Saying you don’t is bullshit.”

“And what do you even care?” Priestly adds. Jen gives him a look. “No, really, what do you care what random dudes think of you?”

Jen nods once, but it’s jerky, forced. “Seriously, Priestly? You dress up like a fucking clown and paint your hair, and you pierce everything in sight and that’s great, hurray for self-expression. But you can’t tell me you don’t do it at least a little for the attention. To get people to fucking look at you. And then you get pissed when people judge you on it! Tish, you’ve got- I know you think guys don’t see the real you.” She pulls away, out from under Tish’s arm. “How many proms did you miss because no one asked you? How many times have your friends left you sitting alone at a club while they went and danced with guys? Or how many times has a customer completely ignored you to get a better look at me? So until that happens, until you’re told time and time again that your place in life is in the background, don’t tell me it’s bullshit, because you don’t know.” She’s slowing down now. “I care because apparently everyone else cares.”

“Jen-“ he starts. She looks up at him, hazel eyes dark, and he realizes he has absolutely no clue what to say.

She stares at them all in silence for a minute, then turns, and walks out the door.

 

* * *

 

“Hey.” Piper had been right; she was on the park bench just down the street. It wasn’t a bad place. “Mind if I sit?”

She smiles up at him, but it’s faint and a little sad. “No.”

He settles down, trying to figure out how to start, how to get her to talk to him again. Once she would have opened up to him freely, but maybe he’s lost that privilege.

She’s the one who starts. “Did you mean it?”

“What?”

Her hands rub together, a nervous tic, and she doesn’t look at him when she clarifies. “What you said back there, about me.”

“Wait, seriously? I mean, I’m not sure I get why you care- come on, how much does what people think of your face- or your body- even matter?” She looks up, and it’s such a broken look that he says, “Yeah. Of course I mean that. You are about as attractive as a woman can be, inside and out.”

She leans against him, and he puts an arm around her, pulls her close. It’s nice, the wind coming in from the bay cool and soothing, knocking away the summer heat. They sit for a long minute.

“I’m sorry I spent so long lying to you. I mean, it was kind of an accident,” he admits. “But I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I just… it’s like I don’t know what’s going on any more,” she says. She sounds scared, and Priestly has a sinking feeling that this, too, is his fault. “It’s like, you say one thing, and everyone else says something different about me. And I don’t know- do I trust you? I thought I could. I thought I could trust you, as my… my internet friend, and then I figured Priestly- he’s a good guy, right? He’s one of the nice ones.”

“Um.”

She doesn’t look at him while she says this, and there’s a tension running through her whole body, like she’s vibrating while leaning up against him. “And then it turns out you’ve been… this other thing that I completely missed. I don’t even know what to think. Do I know anyone? Do I know what they think of me? Is Tish going to turn out to have been my enemy all along and I’m just too dumb to notice?”

“I’m not your enemy,” he protests, because no matter how terrible he’s been to her, he’s sure that’s not what’s happened. “And neither is Tish.”

She sighs. “No. But for all I really knew you, you could have been. If I can’t even read my friends and figure out what’s going on with them, then what good am I with anyone?”

When it hits him, when it really comes home to him, it’s like the last of the fight drains right out of him, and he’s left hollowed out. Somehow they’d ended up in this mess despite his having the best intentions in the world. Not somehow: By his own terrible judgment. He’d been too nervous, too scared to go after anything he cared about when other people might see him fail, and he’d followed impulses here and there and thought too much about what he wanted and not enough about what Jen needed.

Maybe no one in their right mind would assume that someone as smart, talented, kind, and beautiful as Jen would have her sort of insecurities, because there’s no way she deserves them. But that’s not the point, the point is that she has them, despite how absurd it looks to him, and he didn’t even notice. Not after so long working together; not after spending the better part of a year talking to her, supposedly getting to know her.

Maybe Priestly doesn’t know her at all.

He’s the one who screwed up, who didn’t pay attention, who didn’t listen to the people around him. Jen’s the one paying the price. That’s not fair.

He casts about for something to say, but there’s not anything that comes to mind. There’s no quick fix, and that means… what does that mean, he wonders. It means he can either walk away, get out of her life, and stop screwing up. Or he can stick around, try to undo the damage. It’s selfish, the impulse to stay, to try to earn her friendship and her interest from scratch, but hell, at least if he’s acting selfishly he’ll admit it now.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last. “I didn’t know what I was doing, whatever that’s worth. I guess I was a little clueless.”

Jen’s shaking, and he leans over to see her face, because if she’s crying he doesn’t know what he’ll do. But she’s not, she’s just snickering. She sees him looking down at her and bursts into full-out laughter. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be- hah!- I just… you?” She giggles some more. “Clueless? I _never_ would have guessed.”

“Hey!” Priestly objects. Then he reconsiders. “Or on second though, okay, that’s fair.”

“Why’d you keep doing it?” She’s sobering up, and he relaxes again, resting against the bench, because he can’t quite keep looking at her if they’re going to have this conversation. “Why didn’t you, I don’t know, do something normal and ask me out?”

“Normal? Us?” he jokes, but she deserves a real answer. “I guess I’m kinda hung up on some things too.” That gets her to look at him, still smiling, but rolling her eyes as well. “I just figured you’d say no unless you had a good reason. I mean, by the time we were going to meet you _did_ say you’d date a guy with more metal on his face than skin.”

Jen throws a hand up in the air. “Priestly! This is not about- whatever, your obsession with body modification-“

“-I’m just trying to say ‘damn the man’, Jen, you know we gotta fight off societal norm with all we’ve got-“

“It’s not about that!” She takes a deep breath. “I missing having someone I can talk to about anything, and who I know I can trust.”

“Okay.” He nods, thinking it over. “But should you know you haven’t lost that unless you don’t want it anymore.” No, he catches himself, that’s not it. “From me, I mean.”

“Right. It’s just hard to go back.”

“Well…” he presses her close for a moment, then pulls away to get a look. “What would you say to giving me a fresh start, then? All questions fair game, radical honesty, ask me anything you want and I’ll give you the truth. No more head-games.”

She turns the rest of the way around to face him, looking up. “That could be a start. But I’ve got a lot of questions, you know. It could take a while. And I’m tired, Priestly, and maybe I’ve kind of missed you, and your… interesting worldview.” She says the last with a bit of a smile.

“So, have dinner with me. You can ask me any questions you want, and we can catch up on world news.” He says it lightly, because if they do any more serious talk he’ll break.

She stares for a long moment. “Yeah, okay. We can try,” she says, and it’s a bit of a shock to him, hearing her say yes now, when he’s finally starting to get how much reason she has to say no.

On the other hand, who is he to argue with her bad judgment when it’s in his favor? “Come on, then. Let’s go easy on us, okay? Hey, you heard they’ve already picked a favorite for Westminster? Fucking terriers, man, why can’t get a good collie once in a while?”

She untangles herself to stand up, laughing at him as she does so. She reaches a hand out to him. “Alright, then, Mr. Fuzzy Twenty-Two. Let’s go.”

He takes her hand in his as they walk across town.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t easy. In all fairness to Priestly, it’s not like he expected it to be easy, but sometimes he wonders if it absolutely has to be this hard. Sometimes he feels like a complete failure because he does the wrong thing, goes in for the kiss too soon or too late or gives a compliment that makes Jen flinch, and on those days he just wants a way out. He’s made too many mistakes already, so each additional error piles on with unreasonable weight, like some kind of cruel joke on them both.

But there are good days, some really good days, and they come more often as time passes.

There’s the time they go out for cheap chinese after they get off work, their first proper date, not long after he asks for a second chance. She quizzes him on all sorts of details, testing boundaries on his promise to tell the truth, to answer anything. It’s scary, but the more he tells her, the more he likes it- getting to stop hiding, to stop holding back, is new for him. He hadn’t realized how much he was denying her while they kept away from identifying details.

It’s only good sometimes, though. Certain questions make will always make him wince. Like when she asks “What’s your first name?

“I- really? Really? Aw, come on. You’re sure? It’s just- it’s terrible.” Of all the questions in the world, she has to go for that one. Great. Of course.

“Priestly, the honesty thing?” She looks so amused, delighted with the power she holds over him right now, and that’s something for him to keep in mind.

“Right. Fine.” He sighs, rather dramatically, because he promised to tell the truth, not to celebrate giving out his most embarrassing secrets. He mumbles “Boaz.”

“Boaz?” She’s laughing, one hand coming up to cover her mouth but it doesn’t hide how funny she finds it.

“Shut up,” he says, with what he considers to be excellent restraint.

“Okay, okay, it’s your name, that’s fine.” She reaches out and pats his hand earnestly, and he is so getting mocked for this by the entire shop just as soon as he goes back in to work. There’s a bit of laughter in her voice when she continues. “So, Boaz, apparently you watch the Food Network.”

“Yes,” he bristles a little.

“I never knew that.” She seemed almost as amused by that, as if trying to reconcile it with her mental image of him was just a joke. She switches topics again. “How do you think Gordon Brown is doing since Tony Blair stepped down?”

“It’s too soon to tell, but he’s been handling the job alright. We’ll see when the glow is gone how he’s really doing.” It’s not a question she ever would have put to him at work, but if they’d been talking online they probably would have spent more than a little time going over his politics, his career, his life- everyone who came through the news seems to end up on Jen’s radar, she reads so many newspapers.

“Did NASA really put a man on the moon?” she shoots.

“Why do I feel like I’m doing my job interview all over again?” She grins at him, unrepentant, and he sighs. He did say anything. He just hadn’t known she’d go for everything. “They could have, but we sure don’t have any evidence, ‘cause those photos were faked, man. And seriously? Ten years from ‘lets go to the moon’ to ‘we’re there’? That’s way too quick.”

“There’s the Priestly I know.” Jen hesitates, like she doesn’t want to ask the next question. “Why did you… when you were being Fuzzzy why did you do that- have me travel out of town, road trip and everything?” She doesn’t look at him, and she’s nervous, or guilty, or something, like she thinks this is still off limits. “I know you’re sorry, Priestly, I just don’t understand why you did it in the first place.”

“I wanted you to have something nice.” It was a really simple thought in his head, even if it had no relation to reality. “You never demand the stuff from people. Other girls do, at least when they’re with someone, but I thought you’d never ask for… for a night out, on the town, or at a nice restaurant, whatever.” She sighs, and maybe he’s wrong about that, because it turns out she’s pretty good at telling people to stop doing things that hurt her. Maybe she’ll eventually be able to ask for what she wants, too. “You should have everything. You should have someone who gets you, who you are, what you’re about, and wants to show off to the world how lucky they are to be with you, Jen.”

The thing about working on this, on the two of them, is that it doesn’t happen overnight. But if she doesn’t believe him that day, she’s still listening, and maybe it makes it a little easier for her to believe the next time he swears she’s someone he’s proud to be with. Maybe it makes it easier to hear the next time he tells her he wants her, unequivocally.

 

* * *

 

Work is more complicated. While the two of them might be okay, or more okay than they were, navigating a relationship between two people is tricky enough. The inevitable inclusion of Piper, Tish, and Trucker the moment they find out is both sweet and a headache Priestly isn’t ready to deal with yet. They’ll be all over the two of them, with guidance he really doesn’t need (okay, it might have been useful earlier, but he likes to think he’s got more of a clue now, even if it’s as simple as listening a lot more and assuming a lot less.) So they just don’t mention it, and they hope for the best. “We’ll tell them eventually,” Jen says, and he agrees.

Trucker asks him what’s going on when Priestly requests an evening off for the the third time in two weeks. It’s just that he feels like this is finally going somewhere, that they’re moving beyond all the nonsense he had put in place, and he wants to see her more and more. When he says he’s just been busy, though, even Trucker can tell that something out of the ordinary is going on.

Trucker leans back against the counter. “Oh, what is this? Does our Priestly have a date?”

“Maybe.” He’s grinning, he knows, and he mimics Trucker’s pose. It’s tricky. He won’t tell a direct lie, but he can mislead the hell out of Trucker… if Trucker will be mislead. “Thought that was company policy these days.”

“Hmm. Tell you what, I’ll let you off, if you bring her by so we can tell her all your terrible secrets,” offers Trucker.

Priestly scoffs. “Oh, please, like I’m gonna bring her here. I wouldn’t want her to think I’m some sort of freak, right?” Trucker agrees with that and gives him the evening off.

He’s not there the day that Tish corners Jen and asks her who she’s been seeing, keeps after her until Jen gives in and admits to seeing someone. Jen kept her cool remarkably well, according to Piper later, but despite Jen’s refusal to name names Tish guessed the ‘Fuzzzy_22’ part. The resultant explosion, from Trucker and Tish both, drove out all the clientele save for Mr. Julius, Lucille, and the cranky professor Priestly still refuses to talk to. It also drove out Jen, who came directly to his house and ranted for hours.

She was calm, and perhaps a little shamefaced, when she saw them again. “I’m sorry for yelling,” she says, and Priestly had missed that detail and regretted even more not being there. “But I’m a big girl, whatever you think, and if I say he’s apologized and I’m ready to forgive him then that’s the way it goes.”

“I just don’t want to see you hurt,” says Trucker, but he lets her be after that.

Tish looks frustrated again, but she seems to be pleased to see Jen with anyone. “You can do better, that’s all I’m saying,” she insists. Priestly can’t argue with that, but for once, he finds he doesn’t mind the world’s injustice all that much.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes it’s awkward.

Their first kiss is kind of a disaster. She honestly isn’t expecting it, despite it being a moment that’s perfectly obvious to Priestly, and after a certain amount of embarrassment on her part they end up giggling, flopped over on the couch. “Seriously?” she asks. “You were going to kiss me?”

“Well I wasn’t gonna bite your nose!” he protests, and they start laughing again.

When he does kiss her, properly, he warns her first, and it’s much better. She’s surprised, not because she’s never kissed anyone- that’s obviously not true. But she wasn’t expecting how much he _wants_ to kiss her, to keep kissing her and touching her, and pretty soon she’s with him, enthusiastically, even if she’s still a little confused about his motives.

It gets better from there. The first time Jen kisses him, it’s better than any kiss he’s ever gotten because he legitimately worked for it- and so did she. It’s a whole new kind of pride, and he likes it. They make out for hours like a couple of kids, her hands wandering more and more, stroking his arms, down his back, and finally under his clothes. When she gets his shirt off she grins openly.

“What?” he asks, because, okay, he knows he’s pretty damn good looking by boring standards, and this is a California beach town- she sees shirtless guys pretty regularly. “What’s so funny?”

She laughs at him, and kisses him on the mouth, and then, more tentatively she kisses his chest, just above his nipple. “I just am really, really glad we finally got your shirt off,” she says, and then she’s touching him again and they go without talking, for once. They lose clothing bit by bit after that, more often and more quickly, until Jen’s barely waiting for the door to close behind them, and she no longer flinches when he stares at her shirtless. It’s good, to be wanted, and to have Jen letting him know it so quickly, and it’s better to see her enjoying his desire.

There are other moments, things he hadn’t even considered, like the day Tish points out the bruise on the base of Jen’s throat. Apparently Jen’s not in the habit wearing shirts with a higher neckline when she’s got a mark, because it’s one of a thousand experiences she hasn’t had before. She keeps her cool, except for the way she blushes beet red. Mr. Julius compliments her on it when he gets his sandwich that day, and joins everyone else in snickering at her. When Priestly apologizes later she’s laughing about it too, like she doesn’t even mind being the butt of her coworkers’ humor, and when he tries to tell her how much he admires that, she brushes him off. “They can give me a hard time if they want,” she says. “I know a way you can make it up to me, though,” and that keeps them pretty busy for the rest of the evening.

 

* * *

 

They talk about sex, about the way they don’t rush into it, about the way Jen feels weird being a virgin in her twenties. “It’s okay,” he tells Jen, “this part is complicated for anyone, except maybe Tish.”

She smacks him lightly for that one, but it works, gets her to relax a little bit. It’s funny, but after all they’ve worked through, after conversation after conversation where his only aim was to get her to trust him again, having sex doesn’t even seem like their biggest milestone anymore. He’s taking things slower than he’s ever done because he wants her to enjoy herself without any second-guessing. It isn’t as frustrating as he would have figured. Sex is really, really important to him, he’s a pretty good stereotype of a dude in certain ways and this is one of those ways, but what they’re doing is okay. Letting Jen run things- at her pace, letting her figure out what she wants for herself, what she wants from him- that’s it’s own satisfaction.

They don’t pick a day or anything, but when she’s been pushing further and further, and is pretty clearly there, he decides to do a show of old-fashioned romanticism. It’s a Sunday evening but he takes her to a nice restaurant, the sort of place he’d meant to bring her on their first misbegotten date, and maybe he plays up being a gentleman just a little. It’s fun, and it gives Jen something to mock him about.

That night is good for him, and he’s trying not to put words in her mouth but damn, it sure seems to be good for her. Jen seems nervous afterwards, tossing and turning, and he finally rolls over to face her. “You don’t have to stay,” he says, serious. “But you know I’m happy to get to see you in the morning.”

She kisses him again, shy about it for the first time in ages, and falls asleep with one arm still stretched over his chest.

 

* * *

 

The morning after is easier.

He comes out of the bedroom to find her standing in the kitchen, in bare feet, her hair sticking up every which way. She’s sort of glaring at the coffeemaker. It beeps at her. She pokes at the buttons, and when it beeps at her again she smacks it. He laughs, which gets her attention, and she redirects that glare at him. There’s a bit of eyeshadow smeared over her lids from where she didn’t get it all the way off last night. “See the big button labeled ‘brew’? Try that one,” Priestly suggests.

She glares for a moment longer, and perhaps with a bit more malice, before turning her attention back to the machine. It hisses agreeably when she gets it working. He comes up behind her, puts both arms around her waist. “Hey.” He kisses the freckles on her neck. “Good morning.”

“Mrhm. Morning,” she says.

“You know, of the two of us, I was not supposed to be the perky one at eight am,” he points out lightly. “What happened?”

“Coffee,” she says, or possibly growls. It’s a little hard to tell.

“Hmm.” Priestly considers that. He turns her around in his arms, and she goes, not awake enough to care. She looks so good, and it’s so easy to tease her. “No,” he says, “I think the problem is that coffee hasn’t happened.”

She sighs. “‘Tss hard.”

“Yes, I know, that’s a very complicated and advanced machine there.” Her skin feels smooth under his hand, and he keeps running his hand up under her shirt and over her back. “Thank goodness you’ve got a big strong man who’s good at technology to help you with these things, or you’d never get anywhere.”

He feeds Jen eggs, after she’s been properly caffeinated and they’ve each showered. “You’ve got better shampoo than I do,” Jen notes while toweling her hair. “And a lot more hair... stuff.”

“I wear more makeup than you, too,” he points out, “at least most of the time.”

“Hmm. At least one of us is making an effort,” she says.

He grins, because that’s good, that’s progress, seeing her joke about how she dresses, how she doesn’t bother with makeup she doesn’t need to look pretty. He’s knocked off his feet, every now and then, by how easy it is for his happiness to depend on hers.

His shift starts first, and he’s grudging about getting ready, delaying until the last possible second. “You’re going to be late,” she says, and Priestly politely asks her how that makes today different from any other. “It is different, though,” she says, and he nods.

“Yeah. It is, to you and me,” he agrees.

She’s fidgeting with the handle of her laptop bag, her lower lip caught in her teeth. It’s weird, how sure she can be with him now, sometimes, and how nervous she is when other people are involved. “Um. What do- I mean-”

“You mean Tish and Piper are your best friends and what do you tell them?” He asks, and she nods. “Just… tell them whatever you want. It’s your life and your body. I’m just along for the ride, you know?” She gives him hell for that one, the unintentional double-entendre, and if anyone else on earth knows what a filthy sense of humor Jen’s actually got he’ll shave his head. It’s okay, though, that’s one thing that can just stay between the two of them.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t that Priestly’s nervous at work that day. He’s just keeping an eye out, waiting, being ready, and he’ll forever deny jumping when the bell on the door jingles loudly. Jen stands there, holding perfectly still, and Priestly worries for a split second that she’s scared to see him, but no. It’s about the girls. Piper looks her over very, very carefully, for a very, very long moment. The smile on her face breaks slowly, but Piper’s already calling out for Tish. “Come here, I think there’s something you should see.”

“Oh. My. God,” says Tish, obviously delighted, as she carelessly drops a half-finished sub on the counter to go get a better look at Jen. “You said you were seeing him last night, that you might- did you- oh my god you did!”

Then both girls are hugging her, and she’s hugging them back, and Priestly’s grinning too. He’ll be cool when it all comes out.

Trucker leans over his shoulder. “So what d’you think, son? This the start of a new chapter in our little girl’s book?”

“Hell, Trucker. Could be the beginning of a whole new era.” He busies himself at the register, because he’s gotta play it cool until she’s ready to tell the truth. Actually, come to think of it, maybe looking busy isn’t the way to play it cool at all. He steps back from the register and tries to act nonchalant, but it’s okay. Trucker’s already turned his attention back to Jen.

Trucker throws an arm over her shoulder to usher her properly into the store. “So tell me, when do we get to meet this mysterious guy? You gonna bring him to the commitment ceremony so Zo can meet him?”

“Oh, you should totally do that,” agrees Piper, quickly. “I wanna check him out.”

“What, and see if he’s your type?” teases Jen, but there’s no heat in it.

Tish backs Piper in the wedding- commitment ceremony- idea. “We need to inspect him. What if _he_ doesn’t like _us_?”

“Oh, but he likes you already,” says Jen, without dropping her smile, but it starts to fade as she considers the rest of the demand. “I’m just not sure... I should talk to him about it. It could be awkward. But, um, thanks, Trucker, for the offer.” There’s a look on her face, a sort of ‘little girl lost’ appearance, that Priestly can’t stand to see- he’s not sure when it started bothering him so much but he’s damned if he’s going to be the cause.

He clears his throat. “Hey, if he’s halfway to being good enough for you he’ll want to be there. Any guy would be proud to be your date to something so important.”

Jen turns around, and looks right at him. She nods, smiling just a little, and goes back to what she’s doing, but that’s okay. They’ve talked enough by now, they don’t always need words. Tish is dragging Jen’s attention away again, pressing for details while Jen waves her off, and refuses to give anything away. Piper gives him an odd look before joining them. Priestly doesn’t know what he looks like to get that, but he knows what he feels like: like he’s finally got something good.

 

* * *

 

He kisses her, a sweet kiss, long and slow, ignoring the wind that’s trying to blow sand into both their faces. Kissing Jen is wonderful, sexy and fun, not the least because she’s taken the idea of ‘say what you like’ to heart and has been giving him feedback like he hasn’t gotten since those first few fumbling attempts in high school. He pulls back after another quick peck. She brings a hand up to rub at her face, where his beard has irritated her skin, and okay, maybe they’ve been doing this for a little while.

“You wanna maybe do something about that, Boaz?” she asks, but she’s amused.

He steps back. “Seriously? You’re attacking the beard? My facial hair is fantastic. It’s part of my overwhelming sex appeal. Why on earth would you want me to get rid of it?”

“Alright, alright, just- maybe keep it trimmed a little more? You forgot today, didn’t you?” She reaches up to tweak a hair, and he kisses the freckles on her cheek in retaliation. She giggles at him.

After a moment he lets her duck away. She leans back against Trucker’s van, wiggling her eyebrows at him suggestively. “We’ll see,” he says.

He reaches out to stroke her hair out of her eyes. She catches his hand in hers. “Are you ready to do this?” she asks. Her blue dress flutters in the wind, and he wonders if she has any clue how incredibly gorgeous- elegant- classy- hell, how sexy she looks right now. Of course he’s ready to do this, with her. He might even survive, if their little makeshift family is feeling especially generous.

Priestly doesn’t say that. “Hell yeah!” he says, instead, and then he leans in for one last kiss. “They’re our friends. They’ll be happy, right?”

“Or they’ll yell at me for a few minutes while Trucker ensures your body will never be found,” she says, grinning wickedly.

“Or that.” He swallows hard. He’s kept bigger secrets for longer, sure, but he’s never kept one that made him so happy before. And if Jen wants to tell, if she trusts him enough, and herself enough to make that happen, then it’s time. “Let’s go face the music.”

“Hmm.” She takes his hand. “Think this’ll distract them from the wedding outfits at all?”

“I don’t know, what’s the theme? Peace signs? Does she have a tie-dyed wedding gown? ‘Cause that would be awesome.” It would be an amazing way to say screw-you to the white-only ‘selling your virginity’ establishment of marriage, too, while looking really good. “Come on, babe, what are they wearing?”

“Nothing.”

They walk down to the beach still laughing.


End file.
